Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Oct 2012 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this eBook

In his signature larger-than-life style, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall is a revealing self-portrait of his illustrious, controversial, and truly unique life.

The greatest immigrant success story of our time.

His story is unique, and uniquely entertaining, and he tells it brilliantly in these pages.

He was born in a year of famine, in a small Austrian town, the son of an austere police chief. He dreamed of moving to America to become a bodybuilding champion and a movie star.

By the age of twenty-one, he was living in Los Angeles and had been crowned Mr. Universe.

Within five years, he had learned English and become the greatest bodybuilder in the world.

Within ten years, he had earned his college degree and was a millionaire from his business enterprises in real estate, landscaping, and bodybuilding. He was also the winner of a Golden Globe Award for his debut as a dramatic actor in Stay Hungry.

Within twenty years, he was the world’s biggest movie star, the husband of Maria Shriver, and an emerging Republican leader who was part of the Kennedy family.

Thirty-six years after coming to America, the man once known by fellow body­builders as the Austrian Oak was elected governor of California, the seventh largest economy in the world.

He led the state through a budget crisis, natural disasters, and political turmoil, working across party lines for a better environment, election reforms, and bipartisan solutions.

With Maria Shriver, he raised four fantastic children. In the wake of a scandal he brought upon himself, he tried to keep his family together.

Until now, he has never told the full story of his life, in his own voice.

Here is Arnold, with total recall.

Ratings and reviews

The book is aman absolutely wonderful read, easily entertaining and fun. However, towards the end of the book he starts to delve into his politics. This would not be an issue if there were maybe only a few chapters and then the story continues, but not in this case. The last 200+ pages are about politics. I literally had to just quit reading it and consider it finished. Great book before that, still worth a read.

People here are retarded, this book has NOTHING to do with the movie, its a biography piece. Most of the morons leaving reviews have never read the book.

Written in a casual fashion, starting in the early days in Europe and taking us along memory lane. Loved it all. He does get inte politics at the end, but even there it's entertaining and fun to read. I have recommended this book to almost everybody I know.

About the author

Arnold Schwarzenegger served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Before that, he had a long career, starring in such films as the Terminator series; Stay Hungry; Twins; Predator; and Junior. His first book, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, was a bestseller when published in 1977 and, along with his Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, has never been out of print. He is the author of Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life and Arnold, a limited docuseries about his life, is currently streaming on Netflix.